Words From the Dead 2: Justice for Ellie
by Lady Josephina
Summary: The sequal to my first HoHH story. People are returning to the Vannacutt Asylum. Among them is the greatgreat grand neice of Ellie Burrows. It is the poor little ghost's only hope in escaping her prison. But the house has other plans.
1. Chapter 1

Deanna Burrows didn't know why she wanted to learn. It could have been the way her father always grew tense when he talked about the family history. Or it could have been when the voices started...

The moment Deanna made notice of her condition, Mr. and Mrs. Burrows wasted no time in getting her treatment. She had seen countless doctors and psychiatrists. There was the strict regiment of pills to soothe her ailing mind.

"We cant send her off to college like this!"

"Her doctor said she's doing well on the medication. Besides, the school has a good therapist should she have a relapse."

The sound of her parents arguing drew Deanna from her book. They seemed to quarrel more frequently since the diagnosis. Inching down the stairs, she listened in on their heated conversation.

"Don't give me that! The only thing those college psychiatrists can do is ship her off to the looney bin!" Mrs. Burrows roared.

"Martha, you're being ridiculous-"

"I WONT HAVE HER END UP LIKE YOUR GREAT-GRANDFATHER'S SISTER!"

That was it. The argument ended as quickly as it started.

Deanna stood in a daze in the stairwell. And to think her father had sworn up and down that there was no history of mental illness in the family. Deanna locked the debate away inside her mind.

_...Deanna..._

The girl awoke with a start. Her eyes clenched shut against the oppressive darkness of her college dorm. Like a crashing wave, a swarm of voices echoed in her head. But one voice shined out from all the others. It's tone soft and feminine, but full of pain.

_Help me, Deanna... Set me free... We are prisoners..._

Clutching her head, she sat on the edge of her bed until the voices gradually waned away to an indeterminate hum.

"That's it" Deanna sighed. "Enough is enough!"

Groping through the darkness, Deanna switched on her computer. It's welcoming chime shattered the desolate silence. To her relief, her slumbering roommate remained asleep.

Her fingers danced across the keyboard as she scoured the internet for information. All the while, the flame of her parent's argument burned inside her head. There had to be something. Anything that could explain her unmentionable past.

With a click of the mouse, a site flashed onto the screen. Your Entire Family Tree 

Deanna's hazel eyes were glued to the monitor. As she typed in her last name, she scanned every aunt, uncle, cousin and grandparent that came up. None were very auspicious. Each one marrying, having children and living to a ripe old age. Typical family outline.

Elizabeth Ann Burrows: 1913-1931

"You were only eighteen" she murmured. "What happened to you?"

Barely able to hold back her excitement, Deanna clicked on the link. A second page opened, revealing a black and white photograph of a little girl standing outside her brownstone apartment. Attired in the style of the day, a cloche hat sat neatly atop her bobbed hair. At the time the photo had been taken, there appeared nothing unusual about the girl. Her wide grin with missing baby teeth flashed the undaunted happiness of youth.

But the article below melted away any cheer in the photo.

_L. A. Mourns Youngest Victim in Vannacutt Massacre_

_Before she became ill, friends and family knew Elizabeth Burrows as a bright, happy girl. The daughter of local shop owner, Elizabeth (Ellie) was the pride and joy of Frank and Anabelle Burrows._

"_She was so smart" her mother says with tears in her eyes. "She got high marks in school. She loved her brothers and sisters. Ellie was just a ray of sunshine, pure and simple."_

_Mrs. Burrows could not bring herself to comment any further. _

_At fifteen years of age, Ellie began to show signs of schizophrenia. At first she tried to hide her condition, but her family intervened when the symptoms overtook her life. She claimed to hear voices, had bizarre delusions and tried to commit suicide by swallowing rat poison. Dr. Jacob Burns, a medical practitioner, referred her to the Vannacutt Psychiatric Hospital for treatment. Dr. Burns could not be reached to comment on this story. _

"_Once she was admitted, we weren't allowed to see her" Mr. Burrows says. "Dr. Vannacutt said she might have a relapse if exposed to anything pertaining to home life. All we heard about her were the progress reports the hospital sent us every week."_

_The progress reports were a web of elaborate lies constructed by Vannacutt's staff. They stated that Ellie and other patients like her were thriving under the good doctor's expert care. That she was making leaps and bounds in her recovery._

"_If she was doing so well, why wouldn't they let us see her!" Mrs. Burrows sobbed._

_The Burrows and other families fought tooth and nail for the right to see their afflicted family members. But they were always turned down with a friendly reminder that the patients were doing well._

_It wasn't until the fire did Los Angeles see the truth. The outrage from the public could have equaled the inferno's power. For the sake of decency, I will not go into the kind of torture inflicted on these poor souls. Only that the skull of Ellie Burrows bore the marks of multiple lobotomy incisions and trepanning. _

_With the consent of her parents, Ellie was buried in the cemetery. The bodies of those who could not be identified were interred in a mass grave and immortalized with a modest memorial._


	2. Chapter 2

"Dee... You okay? You look like hell."

Laura Mirkwood took a seat next to her roommate in the student lounge. Deanna had been up almost the entire night searching for more information on her lost relative.

"I'm alright" she said. "Alright as a person can be after discovering a big-ass skeleton in the closet."

She handed Laura the freshly xeroxed research she had compiled.

"Her name's Ellie" Deanna said heavily. "She died in that asylum when it caught fire. She was one of the youngest patients there. And apparently she was my great great aunt."

Laura did not bother to read the research. Her eyes could only linger on the post mortem photograph that took Deanna three hours to find.

The sad remains of Ellie Burrows lay on metal gurney. Every inch of flesh had been reduced to charred tissue. Her once pretty head, a mottled mass of weeping burnt meat with only a gaping eye socket and a mouth set in a silent scream.

Swallowing her bubbling lunch, Laura lay the appalling evidence down.

"I hate to be the bearer of creepy coincidences, but have you seen these."

Digging through her notebook, Laura handed Deanna a day-glo yellow flyer.

"They're all over campus, Dee."

The girl grit her teeth as she read the flashy words.

_COMING SOON_

_THE VANNACUTT ASYLUM MUSEUM_

_See the Sanitarium of Slaughter!_

_Over Fifty Different Exhibits!_

_Come Opening Night _

_Stay Until Morning and Receive a Free Artifact_

"I don't believe this!" Deanna snapped. "People died there! Now they turned into some tourist trap museum?!"

"People build museums on murder all the time" said Kelly. "Remember the trip to Europe this spring?"

"Please. Aushwitz is a memorial. This has gift shops and animatronic zombies."

A charcoal gray sky hung over the old college campus that afternoon. Bundled up against the crisp autumn chill, Deanna made her way back to her dormitory. The red and yellow leaves swirling in little cyclones around her ankles. As she blew into her palms, the girl's thoughts continued to gravitate to the forbidden house. It's foreboading image sending a strange pulsing shock wave through her body.

Shaking her head Deanna extinguish the fevered thoughts as she strode past the courtyard. All she wanted was to get back to her room.

Suddenly she came to a halt.

He was there.

Sitting of a cement bench under an oak tree, he sat.

Dante Fisher. The one who sat infront of her in English Lit, completely unaware of the wistful eyes that gazed upon him from behind. Deanna had come to know his appearance down to the tiniest freckle. His skin the silky color of coffee and milk. That black hair coifed into perfect effortless dreadlocks.

She had been smitten since day one.

But in an instant Deanna, felt her daydream shatter. Dante looked up and their eyes met. Brimming with embarrassment, Deanna lowered her gaze and bid a hasty retreat to her dorm house.

Once behind the door, Deanna took in the safety of the dorm house. With most of the students out, it was a rare blessing for the place to be so quiet. Savoring the silence, Deanna made the long hike upstairs to her room.

_squelch... squelch... squelch..._

The hallway carpet was soaked.

"Toilet must be broken. Again." Deanna sighed

But the more she looked, a tingling sense of fear raced up her spine. The kind of fear that was usually dulled by her medication.

Forcing herself to kneel, Deanna ran her fingers across the saturated carpet.

BLOOD!

That was it. Forgetting her books, Deanna bolted headlong to the familiar shadows of her room, locking the door behind her. Collapsing on her bed, she rocked back in fourth trying to get the horrible image out of her mind.

"Its not there... It isn't real... It isn't real... It isn't-"

"_Deanna..._"

Her heart stopped dead in her chest. A chalky white hand shot out from under the bed and gripped her wrist.

"_We need you, Deanna._"

Like a bomb going off, a barrage of images flickered through her head. Dark hallways, demonic contraptions, but most of all, an overwhelming sense of agony. Something so dark and evil, it swallowed up any hope or happiness into a void of despair.

But just as the ghastly apparitions appeared the were gone. All was quiet again

Eyes rolling back, Deanna collapsed into a deep faint.


	3. Chapter 3

"Dee... Can you hear me? Squeeze my hand if you can hear me."

Slowly the world of reality emerged in a haze of white light. As her eyes adjusted, Deanna took in her sterile surroundings.

"Where am I?"

"You're in the hospital" Laura said. "Haylie saw you run down the hall and lock the door. She said you were screaming."

The memory of the horrid experience came roaring back. Her eyes clenched shut, Deanna sank into the bed.

"I thought you said your breakdowns were under control." Laura whispered.

"They are under control" Deanna said fiercely. "This was real!"

Heaving a sigh, Laura took a seat next to the bed.

"I overheard the doctors talking. They said you were still hallucinating. Something about a woman with one eye."

"Okay, maybe I was seeing things then" Deanna snapped. "But she was the one who made me relapse. Look at this!"

Rolling back the sleeve of her hospital gown, she thrust her wrist under Laura's eyes. Five crescent-shaped scratches had been sliced into the girl's skin.

"Is it a possibility you did it to yourself?" Laura suggested.

"Right. If that were the case, then I'd have to be born with two left hands. Besides, my nails are too short to do any real damage"

"Uh huh... right..."

A sharp silence cut through the private hospital room. The terror Deanna had drowned in earlier that day was quickly turning to anger. Her only friend in college did not believe her.

"Look! Ever since I got treatment, I've learned to see hallucinations for what they are. But this was not all in my head! This was real! She showed me things and I have to-"

"Dee!"

"What?!?"

Swallowing her apprehension, Laura forced herself to speak.

"They want to admit you!" she blurted out. "The doctors said they want to put you in the mental ward for observation. They think your a danger to yourself!"

Once again, Deanna felt her heart come to a halt. It was as though her insides had turned to glass and smashed into dust. Her mind screamed for her to do something, anything then just lie there.

In the midst chaos fuming within her, Deanna's lungs heaved in manic hyperventilation.

"Nurse!" Laura called out into the hall. "She's doing it again!"

* * *

The moonless night cast Deanna's room in oppressive darkness. With her wrists strapped to the mattress it was an effort just to find a restful position.

Deanna had pleaded with the doctors not to be left alone. Even threatening to to claw open her neck. But in the end, she submitted when her body was bound and a sedative was injected.

As if a snake were slithering up her spine, a strange chill resonated through Deanna's drugged body. An echoing voice calling her name. It's tone was eerie, but spoke like a mother gently waking her child.

"You're here... are'nt you?" Deanna slurred.

"_I never left_"

Cold disembodied fingers felt their way around the leather straps. With fluid precision, they began to free the girl's trapped hands.

"What do you want?" she made herself ask.

"_Your help!_"

Just as before, Deanna's mind was awash in flickering images. But this set of visions were not as disturbing as before. The scene resembled a black and white movie shot on grainy, deteriorating film.

A teenage girl dressed in the latest fashion of the roaring twenties. A stylish Cloche hat sat neatly on her wavy hair. Her pleated skirt falling just below the knee, accenting her Mary Jane shoes.

"Is that you?"

The girl in the vision smiled and shyly nodded her head.

Unable, or unwilling to move, Deanna watched the silent movie projected in her mind.

Holding an empty popcorn box, Ellie Burrows and her little brother joyfully exited the local cinema. The feature on the marquee read in bold letters "Lon Chaney in The Phantom of the Opera".

As they made their way home, brother and sister were still under the spell of the movie.

Suddenly the scene flashed to a placard with dialog written on it. A common sight in silent films.

"_Lon Chaney was my favorite. My brother Tommy liked him too, but he preferred Harold Lloyd._"

More scenes passed in front of Deanna's eyes. Scenes of a loving family, friends at school and trips to the beach. But slowly, the grainy flashback dissolved into terror. The agony of Ellie's disease creating a million little tragedies, until finally the Burrows had no choice but to commit their daughter. It would be the last time Ellie would see her family again.

* * *

Like a developing Polaroid, the real world faded back into normalcy. But to Deanna's shock, she was not in the infirmary. Still clad in her hospital pajamas, she found herself lying on a checker-board linoleum floor. Groaning a little, Deanna hoisted herself to her feet and limped down a dim hallway. She could hear human voices.

"Is someone there?" the girl called weakly.

Reaching the end of the corridor, Deanna found herself in what appeared to be some kind of foyer. It's decoration a throwback to art deco. But feeling of industrial menace overthrew any feeling of whimsy the decoration may have inspired.

But it was the skylight that caused Deanna the most dread.

The stained glass monstrosity resembled a glass nightmare that had shattered into a thousand pieces, then soddered back together.

Deanna felt she may be looking into her own mind. In a swirling haze, she struggled to piece together the last few hours. How had she gotten here? Was she so entrenched in a hallucination that she simply blacked out? Did she sleepwalk?

"Deanna?"

A human voice snapped her from thought.

A knot of people had formed themselves around the confused girl. Some Deanna did not know, but there were a few she had seen at school.

Dante Fisher was there!

"Excuse me, Miss" a bespectacled young man spoke up. "But aren't you that girl who escaped from the hospital?"

"What?" Deanna gaped.

"Don't you know? You've been missing for two days!"

Once again, Deanna was thrown back into a fog.

Two days! How could she have been out of it for two whole days!

"Alright" the young man said. "I'm calling the hospital."

But as soon as he whipped out his cell phone, Deanna pounced. Her hand knocking the cellular clear across the room.

"No! I have to be here!"

"Look, calm down. You're not well. We need to get you back to-"

"Someone brought me here, okay!" Deanna roared. "I don't know how, but they did. And they need me to help them."

Another student stepped forward with a cell phone.

"Here, Clay. You can use mine."

Disregarding the girl's claims Clay began to dial the phone.

_RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR..._

"Did you hear something?" asked Dante.

From the depths of the house a low rumbling thundered inside the walls, like something had been switched on. Faraway gears began to turn triggering a chain reaction. The twilight from outside slowly shrinking away as metal plates closed over the windows.

"Its happening..."


	4. Chapter 4

A maestrom of metalic clanging boomed around the house as every window was sealed. In the midst of the chaos around her, Deanna stood stock still. The whispers had returned. But this time it was more than just Ellie. It was as though every spirit had latched onto her. Their voices all crying out at once.

"Alright, everyone calm down!" Clay bellowed. His pinched face turning pink.

"What was that?" A curly haired boy bellowed.

"It's just a power surge, Frank. I know where the locking mechanism is. All we have to do is reverse it."

The rest of the guests nodded and murmered in agreement. Most of them thinking the lockdown was all too well rehearsed to be of any danger.

"I cant let you go down there" Deanna spoke up.

"What?"

"They want me. I'll go."

"Oh... I dont think so!"

"Well, maybe we should let her" a blond girl spoke up. "I mean... I'm not really up to going down there."

"Lisa, the only thing down there are dioramas and manaquins" Clay soothed.

Deanna cast Clay a hard glare.

"You're not going to like it down there."

"Look, Cuckoo's Nest. You may be a big yahoo in the padded cell, but the last thing I need is liability like you on our maiden voyage. But since you decided to show up, I'm not taking any chances."

As if reaching for a carton of cigarettes, Clay pulled out a pair of handcuffs from his pocket.

"Now you have two options" he smiled. "Either you come with us, or I'm making sure you dont leave this spot."

Dante's brow creased in unnerved frown.

"Why would you need those?"

"For trespassers" Clay smirked. "Cant be too carefull"

* * *

If the foyer managed even a germ of archetectural beauty, then the basement had all the ambiance of a dungeon. Every surface was either concrete or had been carved out of the rock. Bare lightbulbs flickered dramatically against the gray walls, highlighting the mold and mildew. Ancient wheelchairs and gurneys littered the corridors in various stages of decay.

"Looks like you missed a spot" Dante gagged, stepping in a puddle of mystery fluid.

"Oh dont mind those" Clay spoke up. "The pipes are still being difficult. Once we hire some janitors, the place'll be up and running."

The tour pressed on with Deanna bringing up the rear. Nobody was talking to her. Occasionally Dante would toss her a pitying gaze once and again, giving her a speck of hope. But for the most part Deanna kept herself at a distance. She needed every ounce of concentration focused on her sorroundings.

It happened so fast and yet so slow!

Suddenly A pair of chalky white hands lashed out of an empty cell, pulling Deanna inside. She bearly had time to scream. The only realization of her dissapearence came from the slamming of the cell door.

"Deanna?" Dante called. "Dee? Anybody see where Dee went?"

"I thought she was with you." said Lisa.

"I dont know. She was right here... Deanna!"

"Dee!"

"Time to come out, Cuckoo's Nest!"

* * *

It took time for Deanna's eyes to adjust to the cell's dim light. A fading lightbulb illuminated a room that looked like the inside of a concrete box. Where it not for the bulb, the room would have been completely enveloped in darnkess. Only a moldy matress and puddles of stagnate water broke up the cell's suffocating interior.

"You know, you're going to have to stop with the drama" Deanna sighed, brushing herself off. "You keep this up, I'm going to have a heart attack and end up joining your little club."

The ghost of Ellie Burrows flickered into existance like a television with a bad vertical hold.

"_I apologize."_ she said, bowing her mangled head.

It was then Deanna saw the damage the Vannacutt Asylum had wrought upon her poor ancestor.

Dressed in a tattered and singed hospital gown, Ellie appeared a shrunken and emaciated wreck. Her stick-like limbs dressed in various bandages and casts.

Her face would have been beautiful. The delicate lips and one good eye was a disturbing contrast against the rest of her face.

What had once been her left eye was now a dark hole sorrounded by scar tissue. Above the socket, an abcess the size of a clementine bulged from her forehead. A miriad of incision scars lined her skull like a macabre headband, detailing the many failed attempts to cure her.

"Oh my..." Deanna choked. "What happened to you?!?"

Ellie did not need to answer. Her sad smile said it all.

"What do you want me to do?"

The little ghost walked slowly towards her decendant. But Deanna felt no fear this time. There was no malice in Ellie.

"_I'm trapped here"_ said Ellie. _"We all are. We cant leave this place unless the house is distroyed."_

"What... you want me to blow up the house or something?"

The ghost's head dipped in a small nodd.

Deanna was at loss for words.

"What? I... I cant do that! I mean, I dont know how... and... with all due respect... If the house is blown up, then so is everything living inside. I'm sorry. But I just dont think I can."

A thick smell of burning hair filled the room. The temperature falling until Deanna's breath could be seen.

"Ellie?" she managed to chirp. "Where'd you go?"

An unearthly scream boomed inside the cell, knocking Deanna against the cement walls. It was the voice of death.

"_NOW YOU LISTEN!"_ Ellie roared.

She was now just inches from Deanna's face.

"_When I died, I thought I would finally get out of here. But oh, no! I've been stuck in this seventh level of hell for over SEVENTY YEARS! I had to spend all that time knowing I would never see my family again! That they're in a better place and I'm not! I DONT WANT TO BE HERE ANY MORE! YOU'RE GOING TO LET ME OUT!"_

Deanna sat huddled against the wall with her face burried in her knees. Her shoulders shaking with sobs as she begged her dead aunt not to hurt her.

"Okay... Okay" Deanna gasped. "I'll try... I promise I'll help you."

As she sat racked with terror, a pair of warm arms wrapped around Deanna in a comforting embrace. Ellie's anger was spent.

"Why me?" Deanna wept. "Why did you chose me?"

"_Because you are my blood"_ Ellie soothed._"Most of the Others dont have any family left. This is your power, Deanna! The Others will not be able to harm you. But they can manipulate you. They know of your sickness and will use it to their advantage. So you must see past their tricks."_

"What about the other people here." she sniffled.

"_You have to tell them what I told you. Even if they dont believe it at first."_

Like a concerned mother, Ellie helped Deanna to her feet.

"_Now remember..."_ Ellie reminded. _"I will offer you and your party as much protection as I can. But you have to do exactly as I say."_

"So you'll show us how to demolish the house?" Deanna panted.

"_Yes. I'll show you everything you need to do. But I will hold you to your promise, Deanna. If you dont help me, then I cant gaurentee your safety."_

"What do you mean 'my safety'?"

No sooner did Deanna finish her words did Ellie begin to change. The ashy flesh curled up and chipped away in large flakes. Her face cracking away like an old porcelain doll, revealing the raw tissue underneith.

"Ellie!" Deanna breathed

"You have to get out of here!" the ghost cried urgently. "Get everyone upstairs. Hurry! They're coming!"

The cell door flung open, pulling Deanna back out to the hall.

* * *

Ellie remained in the cell, watching her descendant make a break for it. As she sat in the soffocating room the atmosphere took on a strange appearence. As if traversing another dimension, the hospital cell looked to have stepped right out of a grainy black-and-white news reel.

"_Ellie..."_

The young ghost stifled a groan. She always hated when it happened. It meant the Others were waking up. 

"_My dear Ellie Burrows..."_

The figure of a man in a lab coat and peculiar glasses surged from the stone wall. The good doctor was in.

"_Having a little chat, were you Ellie?"_ Vannacutt purred.

"_What can I say"_ Ellie growled. _"I get lonely."_

"_You know you're not the only one here."_ The doctor offered.

"_I dont like talking to them!"_

Vannacutt ran a finger across Ellie's bony shoulder as tenderly as a lover.

"_Where did they go, Burrows?"_

"_They went upstairs. But they wont be there for long. They'll be back."_

As quickly as he arrived, Dr. Vannacutt faded into the ether. But the sepia-toned dimension remained.

"_You know, Ellie. You always were my favorite patient."_


	5. Chapter 5

"EVERYBODY UPSTAIRS, NOW! GET OUT OF HERE! RUN!!"

Suddenly the tour group was met with the jarring image of Deanna tearing through the hallway. Her colorless face dripping with perspiration.

"Jesus! What happened to you?" Dante gasped.

"I'll explain upstairs, now move!"

"Now wait just a minute!" shouted Clay. "We are not going to go tear-assing out of here just because Cuckoo's Nest missed her medication."

In the blink of an eye, Deanna let fly a sound smack against Clay's cheek.

"You don't get these people upstairs now, I'll show much of a schitzo I am." she hissed.

The house seemed to have been waiting for it's que. A chilly phantom wind surged down the corridor, creating a heaving moan that sounded like a hundred damned souls crying out at once. Clay's face turned a color resembling spoiled mushrooms. Swallowing back an obstruction of anger and fear, he quickly ushered the others back to the stairwell.

"When we get out of here, I'm going to make sure they haul you away in a straight jacket" he growled.

"Yeah, provided you still have all your limbs by then."

* * *

Though it was just as cold and uncaring as the rest of the house, the main hall instilled a germ of safety for the marooned guests. As if there were an invisible barrier keeping the seething entities at bay.

"What the hell was that!" Lisa cried

"Relax. Just a little something I installed to give some atmosphere."

"Oh yeah. Like this place doesn't have enough that already!"

The rest of the group nodded and murmured in agreement. Clay knew he was loosing them.

"Now come on, people. This is not exactly a life or death situation. We're just locked in for the night. The renovators will be here at six tomorrow. So in the meantime, I suggest we all get comfortable."

Rummaging through his pocket, Clay pulled out a five dollar bill and inserted it into a nearby vending machine.

"Here. Dinner's on me."

During Clay's sales pitch, Deanna retreated to a far corner of the foyer. She struggled to make sense of what had just happened. Of what Ellie wanted from her.

It was all so much.

As she sat engulfed in turbulence, a dull glimmer caught Dee's eye. Just inches from where she sat, a wet footprint stained the floor. The print was made by a bare foot, as both the sole and the toes were clearly visible.

Slowly her eyes traveled up the floor. A trail of fresh footprints traversed the foyer. The girl's insides went cold but the feeling quickly subsided. As with Ellie, there was no feeling of dread or fear.

Someone was just leaving her clues.

The glistening tracks lead Deanna to an alcove on the other side of the foyer. An information booth stood ready for customers, fully stocked with tickets, programs, and cheesy souvenirs. A brochure lay neatly on the day-glo counter with a map of the house printed in its folds. Each floor was clearly laid out with exhibits, viewing rooms, and even a little cafe on the top floor. But what got Deanna's attention was the bloody fingerprint stamped on an unmarked room in the basement.

"Hey Clay!" she called. "What's this room?"

"Huh? Lemme see"

Clay squinted as he poured over the map.

"Oh, that's nothing" he said. "It's the main boiler room."

"Boiler room?"

"Yeah. Apparently Vannacutt worked out a way for all the boilers in the house to be controlled from just one network."

"You don't say..."

* * *

While the group had made their way back up to the main floor, they had not yet taken into account that one of their fellows was missing.

While following the others, a peculiar sound had caught Jacob Henrick's ear.

Someone talking.

It sounded so close, and yet a million miles away. Though not particularly melodious, the voice wafted through Jacob's brain like a powerful drug. Forgetting the group, and Deanna's warnings, Jacob followed the disembodied sound down the flickering hallway. The young man did not see the dark cells that looked like yawning mouths, nor the creeping mold on the walls resembling greedy skeletal hands. The fluttering voice had all his attention.

At the end of the corridor, an unearthly glow radiated from a curiously isolated room. The voice came to a grinding halt as Jacob entered. But this was no ordinary cell.

Mirrors! Everywhere there were mirrors! Mirrors of every shape and size lined the walls and ceiling, giving the room an aura of a hellish funhouse. And just like a funhouse, some of the looking glasses were warped to cast distorted reflections.

Jacob stood in a stricken daze as he regained his mind. Everywhere he looked he was surrounded by a hundred images of himself.

Against the dim light in the room, a brass plaque beneath the largest mirror caught his attention.

_"The Immersion Chamber"_

_"One of Dr. Vannacutt's many interests was multiple personality disorder. He designed the immersion chamber so that the patient would be forced to confront their "other selves". Though it was touted as breakthrough in mental health treatment, many patients plunged deeper into madness within these walls."_

Jacob swallowed an obstruction in his throat, but only got rid of half of it. Slowly he inched his way towards the door, not taking his eyes off the reflection in the main mirror. He was almost to the door before a chilling realization struck him. The images in the mirrors had stopped following his movements.

Jacob's eyes darted back to the main mirror.

His reflection's head jerked from side to side in a dizzying blur on it's own accord.


	6. Chapter 6

Deanna bolted for the basement as soon as she heard Jacob scream. This time she did not feel disoriented as she ran through the winding celler corridors. In the back of her mind, she knew exactly where she was going.

"Oww!" she suddenly cried.

A sharp pain shot up through her bare heel. The floor was covered with shards of broken glass, as if someone had taken a sledge hammer to a hall of mirrors.

But Deanna pressed on.

Painstakingly she made a little path for herself by pushing aside the glass with the side of her foot.

"What happened!" Clay called from the other end of the hall. "Where's Jacob?"

Deanna looked up at him with moist frightened eyes.

"I dont know..."

* * *

Every mirror in the Immersion chamber was now broken beyond repair. Some so damaged they were left with only token peices of glass stuck in the corners. The floor was a glittering polar sea of broken glass.

"Oh God!" Lisa gagged.

Jacob lay sprawled out on the floor beneith the largest mirror. His mouth fixed in a silent scream. But that was'nt the worst of it. Something had rammed long daggers of broken glass into his eye sockets. Blood ran freely down his face in gorey tears, staining the blades.

Quickly Clay and the others ran to help, some offering to do CPR. But it was too late. Jacob had lost too much blood.

As Deanna stood in a panicked daze, a faint glimmer caught her eye. Something was moving in a large peice of glass.

The Immersion Chamber displayed to her one of it's trophies.

As clear as an image on a television screen, a scene played out on the glass. A straight-jacketted patient locked into the chamber. Full of frenzy, he lauched himself against the mirrors until the glass shattered before killing himself by slitting his jugular vein.

As she watched the house's memories, Deanna suddenly felt very peculiar. It was like she was plumetting faster and faster down a dark mineshaft, but standing still at the same time.

Was this a hallucination attack, or is something coming, she thought.

* * *

"_Deanna!_"

The girl knew that voice anywhere. Looking up, she saw her mangled ancestor sitting cross-legged on the ceiling.

"How did you..." breathed Deanna.

"_You dont need to speak"_ said the ghost. _"I can hear your thoughts."_

"What happened to Jacob?"

"_I thought I told you to stay together! You drift apart and this is what happens! You didn't tell them, did you."_

"I didn't have time to tell them!" Deanna screamed in her head. "I was about to... but then..."

Gazing into her descendant's eyes, Ellie's anger once again began to cool.

"_You're right. It wasn't your fault. Forgive me, Deanna."_

Quickly the girl tried to lighten the conversation. She knew how damaging her departed aunt's moods could be.

"I got the map you left."

"_Ah, good!" said Ellie. "But it wasn't me."_

Deanna felt something cold drop into her stomach.

"_Dont be so disturbed. I told one of the Others and he wants out too."_

A gust of cool air from blew gently against Deanna from the end of the corridor. Squinting against the darkness, she saw what appeared to be a shruken, emaciated figure huddled against the wall. It was another spirit. But like Ellie, it was one of the few entities in the house that was not swollen with venom.

"_That's Philip"_ Ellie said. _"Dont worry about him. He's harmless."_

"He's so small." Deanna thought to herself.

"_Yes. Philip was one of the younger patients. Only fifteen when this place first burned. He got burned pretty bad, so he's a little sensitive about his appearance."_

"Wait a minute" Deanna inturrupted. "I thought you were the youngest patient here."

Ellie heaved a long sad sigh.

"I was the youngest patient to have a family" she said. "Philip was what they called 'a nobody'."

Just as before, another sepia-toned flashback flickered into Deanna's mind. She saw little Philip. A gentle but simple-minded child who had been shuttled from one orphanage after another. When his epileptic fits became too much to handle, he was dropped off at the Vannacutt Asylum. Like so many unfortunate patients, Philip did not live. He simply existed. When the day of the revolution arrived, he stood before the nurse's station with a blank smile as the Others tore the place assunder.

* * *

"DEANNA! DEANNA WAKE UP! BREATH! BREATH, DAMNIT!!"

Suddenly the silent movie memory began to fade away, as a blinding white light took its place. Deanna was awash in confusion.

Did she black out again?

But just before the returned to the conscious world, she looked down to see the scarred, tortured form of Philip Kilbride. His stick-like arms wrapped around her waist in a tight, imploring hug.


End file.
